Have you seen this month’s Yachts and Yachting? It’s the July edition, of course….
Did you see there is a little story there that the Laser SB3 is now not a Laser anything – plus it’s renamed the SB20. “White Formula” are appointed the builders.
Heaven knows what this is about – they say they have 650 boats built. I wonder if it is all slowing down – did they eject Laser or did Laser eject them?
It always seemed to me that the SB3 was better than just a flash in the pan, but you have to wonder if moving away from Laser is the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end. Remember the Laser 5000…..
More detail here
The Flying Fifteen Blog 
SB20 Change. It is my understanding that with Laser it is a volume issue, if the SB3 was moulded out east then volume economies would dictate batch builds, which may not exactly match demand. Perhaps this did not suit the designer’s ambitions for his boat.
There is always some sort of fanfare when a class introduces a new builder plus lots of activity. This is usually because the previous builder was falling short on quality or product over the last period, so there is always that extra demand to satisfy.
The acid test is what happens for the new builder next year when all that frothy pent up demand has been satisfied. Most established boat classes have an established annual churn, boat builders need to scale their operation to that or they will fail.